A Choice of Victims

by J F Straker

  They gave their names as Joe Bright and Ron Willis. On Driver’s instructions they had not been charged, but had been told they were wanted for questioning in connection with the taking of a motor vehicle without the owner’s consent. Neither youth had protested, orally or physically, at being picked up. Nor had they shown any great concern; their attitude suggested that they found the whole affair something of a lark.

  ‘That could be bravado, I suppose,’ Hasted said. ‘In which case you’ve got to hand it to them. I mean, they don’t have to be masterminds to realize that they’re not here just for nicking a car.’

  Driver made no comment. ‘You take Willis,’ he said. They had already discussed guidelines for the interrogations. ‘I’ll take Bright. And don’t rush it, George. Let it build up, eh?’

  Joe Bright was the articulate one. Driver was surprised at the accuracy of Mrs Shawby’s description. He still wore the blue jeans and anorak, and his long curly hair still looked untidy, but he had recently shaved. His smile when Driver confronted him in the interview room was welcoming rather than cheeky. Certainly he showed no sign of nervousness.

  Driver sat opposite at the table and pushed across a packet of cigarettes. Bright shook his head. ‘Never use them,’ he said, adding, as Driver lit up, ‘Killed my old man, they did. You know? Give him cancer. You want to knock it off, man.’

  Normally Driver would have been amused. But not now. Not with murder on the cards. He said briskly, ‘Last Friday lunchtime someone nicked a grey Morris 1100 from the vicinity of Warwick Farm in West Deering. You and Willis were seen in the area around the relevant time. Which is why you’re here. We think you may know something about it.’

  ‘Sure I know,’ Bright said cheerfully. ‘We done it. Me and Ron. And you bloody knew that, didn’t you? All that balls about helping with enquiries—that’s just fuzz talk, ain’t it?’

  Driver was taken aback. He had been confident of getting a confession—he held too many cards to fail—but he had not expected it to be volunteered so readily or so soon.

  ‘Well, that’s a start,’ he said.

  ‘You want I should make a statement? Get it writ down?’

  Ah! A statement would put paid to the questions he needed to ask. ‘I’m going to caution you first. Then I suggest we have a little chat. Sort it all out. After that, if you wish, you can make a statement. All right?’

  ‘Anything you say, man.’

  They had come down from Clapton, Bright said, walking and hitchhiking, hoping to get temporary jobs at a seaside café or restaurant during the holiday season. Thursday night they had slept in a barn, and as they were approaching West Deering on the Friday it had started to rain. The rain was heavy and they had tried without success to find shelter. Turning out of a lane on to the Yellham road they had seen the Morris parked outside a field gate and they had hurried to it, hoping for a lift. There was no one in the car, however, and when they had discovered it was unlocked they had got in to protect themselves from the rain and had sat waiting for the driver. But no one had come, and after a while they had decided that, as the key had been left in the ignition switch, they would borrow the car to take them down to the coast. ‘Which we done,’ Bright concluded, leaning back and stretching his legs. ‘Only, like I said, we wasn’t nicking the wheels. Just borrowing it. You know?’

  ‘Who drove?’ Driver asked.

  ‘Ron. It was him got in behind the wheel, see. He had me proper scared, too. I mean, he ain’t driven much before—ain’t passed his test, neither—but that don’t worry Ron none. He just puts his foot on the floor and bloody goes. I thought we’d bought it when he hit a parked car.’ Bright grinned. ‘Made a right mess of it, and all. You ought to see it.’

  ‘I’ve seen it,’ Driver said. ‘It was my car.’

  ‘Eh?’ Bright stared at him. ‘It never! You’re bloody kidding!’

  ‘No kidding,’ Driver said. ‘And it was practically new. I’d had it just four months.’

  ‘Jeez! Jeez, but I’m sorry, man!’ He sounded properly contrite. ‘That’s real cruel, that is. Still, like I said, it weren’t me what was driving. Got it insured proper, have you?’

  ‘Yes,’ Driver said curtly. The battered Rover remained a sore topic. ‘What happened after the collision?’

  Expecting pursuit, Bright said, they had left the main road and, once they decided they were clear, they had stopped to examine the hot-boxes. The food had been welcome, for breakfast that morning had consisted of a packet of potato crisps. They had then gone on to the coast. ‘I done the driving then,’ Bright said. ‘I didn’t want no more bovver.’

  He paused. Driver waited for more. But no more seemed to be forthcoming and he said, ‘Apart from the food, what else did you steal?’

  A little of Bright’s sang-froid deserted him. He shifted uneasily and sat up. ‘Well, we was skint, wasn’t we?’ he said challengingly. ‘And there was this bag, see? Bloody criminal, it was, leaving it like that.’

  ‘How much?’ Driver asked.

  Bright shrugged. ‘I dunno exactly. A few quid.’

  Driver let that pass. The money was not important. ‘And the gold pencil?’

  ‘That was Ron. Leave it, I said, it’ll get us nicked. Which it bloody did, din’t it? But Ron’s funny, see? There’s times he don’t seem to hear proper. It’s like he’s kind of shut hisself away. Know what I mean?’

  Driver nodded. He did know. There was silence for a while. Then he said casually. ‘How about the boot?’

  ‘Boot? What boot?’

  ‘The car boot.’

  ‘Oh, that! We couldn’t open it. The keys didn’t fit.’

  ‘You didn’t try to force it?’

  Bright shrugged. ‘We wasn’t that bovvered.’

  ‘We opened it,’ Driver said. ‘Guess what we found.’

  ‘A stiff, eh?’ Bright said, grinning.

  It was not quite the answer Driver had expected. Yet it went some way to bolster the uneasy suspicion that was already forming in his mind. He stubbed out his cigarette, grinding it into the ashtray, and leaned back.

  ‘That’s right, Joe,’ he said. ‘A stiff. The body of a woman. She’d been killed by a blow on the head. But then you know all about that, don’t you?’

  Bright’s body seemed to go rigid. He stared at Driver, wide-eyed and open-mouthed.

  ‘It—it was a joke, mister,’ he said, his voice shrill. ‘I didn’t know—I mean we never—oh, bloody Jesus!’ He swallowed and took a deep breath. ‘But we never done it, mister, honest we didn’t. All we done was borrow the wheels and nick a few quid. We never killed no woman.’ He looked beseechingly from Driver to the uniformed constable by the door, and then back to Driver. ‘We never done it, mister. Honest!’

  ‘No?’ Driver shook his head. ‘You say there was no one in sight when you reached the car. So if it wasn’t you who killed her and put her in the boot, who was it?’

  ‘I don’t know, do I? All I know is, it weren’t us.’ Bright licked his lips. ‘Straight up, mister. I swear it.’ Hope came to him. ‘You sure you ain’t having me on? I mean—well, it don’t seem possible somehow.’

  ‘I don’t joke about murder.’ Driver stood up. ‘I’ll leave you to think it over, Joe. If you decide you’d like to talk to me some more—if you want to make a statement, get it all down on paper—let the officer know. But take your time. There’s no hurry.’

  He had to wait for Hasted to finish with Willis. It had been a frustrating experience, Hasted said. Willis had volunteered nothing. ‘Most of the time he sat staring past me with a sort of smirk on his ugly mug. As if the whole affair was nothing to do with him and why was I wasting his time.’

  ‘He didn’t say anything?’

  ‘Eventually, yes. But I had to drag it out of him.’

  ‘So what did you get?’

  He had got much the same as Driver had got from Bright: a reluctant admission to taking the car and stealing money and the propelling pencil, and a flat denial of murder. ‘B
ut he didn’t seem horrified or outraged or upset or anything, like you’d expect him to be,’ Hasted said. ‘No, he said, they didn’t kill her—and that was that. No protestations, no questions. He’s a new one on me, is friend Willis. A real odd bod.’

  ‘Is he willing to make a statement?’

  ‘Says he wants to think about it. I get the impression he might be illiterate. The doodles he was making on the newspaper when he was arrested—they lack any sort of form, if you know what I mean. Remember Sid Burnett, the fellow who set fire to the Williamson factory? His doodling was similar. And he was illiterate.’

  Driver nodded. ‘Illiteracy might partly explain his attitude. Put him on the defensive. But the murder, George. Are those two lads telling the truth? How do you reckon?’

  ‘I’m not sure. How do you?’

  ‘I think they are.’

  It wasn’t only a gut feeling, Driver said, there were sound reasons for his belief. Such evidence as they had suggested that neither man had opened the boot. Hungry and broke, they had raided the hot-boxes and robbed the woman’s handbag, but the valuable items on her person—the jewellery, the gold wristwatch, the money in her purse—had not been touched, and although their fingerprints were all over the inside and outside of the car, none had been found inside the boot. ‘And why would they bother to detach the key from the ring and, presumably, dispose of it?’ Driver continued. ‘Wouldn’t it be more natural to wait until they had finished with the car and then throw the whole bunch away?’

  Hasted agreed that it would, ‘You know, that business of the key really puzzles me,’ he said. ‘No matter who the killer might be, what did he expect to gain by getting rid of it? He must have known that if no duplicate were available the boot would be forced.’

  Driver shrugged. ‘Buying time, perhaps. But to get back to our two lads. Why would they kill the woman? I don’t know about Willis, but Bright strikes me as definitely the nonviolent type. And another thing. I’d say it’s more likely she was killed in the woods and not in the gateway. The gateway’s too damned conspicuous. I know it’s fairly isolated and the heavy rain would have deterred pedestrians, but it’s on a public highway. To kill her there, probably only after a struggle, and then stow her away in the boot, would take more than a few seconds. It would also take a hell of a nerve, knowing a car could appear at any moment.’

  ‘Risky, certainly,’ Hasted agreed.

  ‘Too risky, George. That’s why I think she was killed in the woods. Probably where she’d parked the car while she visited Philipson. And that’s another point in the lads’ favour. The car would have been out of sight from the road. And what else could have taken them into the woods?’

  ‘We’ve searched that area too,’ Hasted said. ‘All the way to Philipson’s cottage. There’s plenty of timber chummy could have used—rocks too, come to that—but no bloodstains.’

  ‘No. But that’s not conclusive, is it? And she was wearing that plastic hood, remember. Incidentally, the pathologist’s initial examination suggests she had an unusually thin skull.’

  ‘So we’re back to square one,’ Hasted said, looking at his watch. ‘Bloody hell! I mean, if those two tearaways didn’t kill her then robbery wasn’t the motive. Which makes it personal. She was killed because of who or what she was. Which means friend—family—acquaintances. It means digging into relationships. And that I don’t like.’

  ‘Who does?’

  ‘And what do we do with Bright and Willis?’

  ‘Charge them with nicking the car. We can hold them on that. If they ask for bail—which I doubt—we object on the grounds that a more serious charge may be pending.’ Driver smiled as Hasted again consulted his watch. ‘Got a date, have you, George?’

  ‘You might say that.’

  ‘Off you go, then. Settled on a name yet?’

  ‘More or less. Martin James.’

  ‘James, eh? I’m honoured.’

  ‘Half honoured,’ Hasted said. ‘Sybil’s father is also James.’

  The hospital was only a few hundred yards from headquarters. Martin James had been born early on the Monday morning, but Hasted’s first sight of him had been at midday; within reason, fathers of newly born infants were allowed unrestricted admittance to the maternity ward. He was a large, healthy, vociferous baby, and according to Sybil, who was breastfeeding him, he took after his father in being extremely greedy.

  He was asleep in his cot when Hasted visited the hospital that Tuesday evening. ‘Don’t wake him,’ Sybil said. ‘I need the peace. We all do.’

  Hasted glanced round the small ward, smiled at the mothers with whom he had already reached a nodding acquaintance, and bent over his son. ‘He’s big, isn’t he?’ he said. ‘Bigger than I thought. Who do you think he’s like?’

  ‘The late Mr Breshnev,’ Sybil said. ‘He’s got the same supercilious look and heavy jowls.’

  ‘No, seriously, darling.’

  ‘I’m being serious. But if you’re looking for a family resemblance, there isn’t one. Not yet. Still, give him time. He’ll probably come up with something.’ She watched a nurse arrange the roses Hasted had brought. He had picked them from their garden that morning, and a WPC had kept them watered. ‘How are you managing, George?’

  ‘Fine. Eileen’s been marvellous. She had a hot meal waiting for me when I got home last night, and both mornings she’s come in early to get my breakfast. And you know how good she is with Jason.’

  Sybil gave a wry smile. Eileen Ryecroft was 20 years old and unemployed, and lived with her parents two doors away from the Hasteds. Sybil liked her, although she suspected that the girl’s interest in George went beyond that of neighbourly friendship. George seemed unaware of this and she had not enlightened him. But she said now, ‘Thank her for me, George, will you? Only don’t overdo it. She’s an attractive girl.’

  He laughed. ‘Jealous?’

  ‘No. But I could be.’

  He told her of the arrest and interrogation of the two London youths and of Driver’s belief that they were innocent of Elizabeth Doyle’s murder. ‘I think he’s right, too,’ he said. ‘Which means she wasn’t killed for the car or the money she had on her. In other words it wasn’t a random killing, executed on the spur of the moment. It was probably premeditated. And that’s a very different kettle of fish.’

  She shuddered. ‘And a lot more horrible. Is there anyone you suspect?’

  ‘Straight off, just about everyone who knew her. Although some are obviously more suspect than others.’ He perched on the edge of the bed. ‘You’re the expert on local gossip. Who would you suspect?’

  ‘I wouldn’t,’ she said. ‘I don’t have a suspicious nature.’

  ‘Try.’

  ‘Well, she wasn’t exactly popular, was she? Lots of people disliked her.’ Sybil frowned, considering. ‘There’s Bob Marston, her ex-gardener, for one. He’s been unemployed since she sacked him last year for being drunk. And Sam Bates—he doesn’t think much of her either. But I suppose you’ll be looking hardest at her husband, won’t you? He’ll inherit her money, presumably. And it’s common knowledge they weren’t exactly lovebirds. Ask Mrs Trotter.’

  ‘David Doyle was in Winchester, lunching with friends,’ Hasted said. ‘We’ve checked. There’s Andrew, of course. He didn’t exactly hit it off with his stepmother. But I can’t see how he’d gain by her death.’

  ‘Through his father?’

  ‘Perhaps. Why Sam Bates?’

  ‘I’m not sure. Something to do with a quarrel over land. I expect Mrs Holden could tell you.’

  ‘I’ll ask her. I’ll be seeing her tomorrow.’

  ‘Don’t tell me she’s on your list.’

  ‘Of course not. But if the murder was premeditated the killer must have known Elizabeth Doyle was delivering Meals on Wheels that day. I want to know who might have had that information.’ Somewhere in the hospital a bell sounded. ‘Is that chucking-out time?’

  ‘There’s no hurry,’ Sybil said, smoothing the
bedclothes. ‘They don’t employ bouncers. Do you think you could forget Elizabeth Doyle for a few minutes and take a proper interest in your family? That’s why you’re here, isn’t it?’

  *

  The news that two men had been taken to Limpsted police station and were helping the police in their investigation into the death of Elizabeth Doyle had been briefly reported on radio and television that same evening. It had been received by the inhabitants of West Deering with satisfaction and relief—assuming, as they did, that in due course the men would be named and charged with her murder. The assumption was shared by the Holden family, so that Frances was surprised to receive a visit from Hasted the following morning. With Elizabeth’s murderers safely under lock and key she could not imagine what more he could want from her. Or perhaps this was not an official visit. Perhaps it had to do with Sybil and the baby. He had thanked her over the telephone for the help she and Tom had given. But he was, she thought, a man very conscious of his obligations. Perhaps he now wished to thank her in person.

  She was upstairs when he arrived, and she called to Natalie to answer the door; then, remembering that the children were out on their bicycles, she went downstairs and opened the door and took him into the sitting room. ‘Congratulations on the boy, Mr Hasted,’ she said. ‘According to Tom he’s a little whopper.’

  ‘Just over nine pounds,’ he said, with justifiable pride.

  ‘Really? That’s some baby. I’m hoping to pay him and Sybil a visit this afternoon.’

  ‘That’s kind of you, Mrs Holden. I can’t answer for my son, of course, but I know Sybil would be delighted to see you. We’re both very grateful for the help you and the doctor have given her.’ Hasted paused. ‘Actually, I’m here to ask your help on another matter. I need a list of those engaged in the local Meals on Wheels service.’

  ‘Of course.’

  Hasted studied the list she gave him. It contained twelve names in all, only two of them male, together with their telephone numbers and addresses and the dates on which they were due to help.