The Affacombe Affair

by Elizabeth Lemarchand

  ‘Pollard here, Mrs Strode,’ he said, when Olivia answered. ‘I’ve been thinking about that invitation you had for October 4th. If another comes along, I suggest you consult me before accepting it.’

  There was a brief silence in which he could sense her surprise.

  ‘Well, certainly, if you wish. Not that I think there’s the remotest chance of my getting one.’

  ‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘And don’t make a lot of deductions, will you? Just a passing thought of mine. Good —’

  ‘Inspector, can you spare a moment?’ she cut in hurriedly. ‘My son — he’s just left for Crossways — reminded me of something after you’d gone. It was on the night of Friday the nineteenth of September, while he was driving down here for the weekend.’

  As Pollard listened he experienced for the second time in the case a faint tremor of excitement. He broke in on a half-deprecating remark of Olivia’s.

  ‘You know, Mrs Strode, only time will show what’s relevant and what isn’t. I’m grateful to you for mentioning this, and please don’t hesitate to contact me — here or at the Highcastle station — if anything else occurs to you.’

  He rang off and dialled a Yard number, his notebook lying open on the table in front of him. On being put through to his Chief’s office he learnt that Crowe was out, but had left a message for him. It was typically laconic, to the effect that a lead was being followed up, and asking him to remain in close touch. In his turn Pollard asked for particular attention to be paid to the night of Friday, September 19th, and the rest of the weekend, and the period October 28th to November 1st. He reported that some suggestive, but at present unrelated facts had come to light during the day.

  He sat on for some minutes, doodling absently on the blotter. He had unconsciously executed quite a creditable terrier head before getting up and re-joining Sergeants Murch and Toye.

  Murch, asked if anyone in his area owned a large powerful saloon car of a dark colour, scratched his head and relapsed into thought. Finally it appeared not, apart from an elderly Rolls belonging to an arthritic elderly lady. Nor could he think of anyone in the neighbourhood likely to be up to funny business in the middle of the night, unless it was campers in the summer, but they’d have cleared off by the nineteenth of September. Anyone after sheep up to the Moor would use a van.

  ‘What are the chances,’ Pollard asked him, ‘of finding out if anyone round here saw a car of that sort on the Highcastle-Polharbour road about midnight on that night?’

  Murch clearly thought they were about nil. There wouldn’t be regular traffic about at that time of night, and folk went to bed early in these parts. Still, there were a couple of villages on the road between Affacombe and Polharbour, and the odd house here and there. Did the Chief Inspector want some enquiries made?

  ‘I know it’s a pretty forlorn hope,’ Pollard said, ‘but this is anything but a straightforward case, and we’re rather clutching at straws at the moment. There’s another point, too. Are there any houses on what I think you call the Affacombe village road, beyond the entrance to the Priory drive and before it joins the main road again? If so, I’d like enquiries made about anyone hearing a car on it at the same time, or someone going along it on foot’

  Here again, Murch was pessimistic. There was only the one farm, Fogworthy, Ted Docking’s place, and it stood well back from the road. Still, they’d have a go. He’d contact his superiors about it.

  In the car outside Pollard told Toye about his call to the Yard.

  ‘It looks like postponing our tabulating,’ he said. ‘With the Chief making a point about keeping in touch, it’s a hundred to one they’re on to something and we could quite well be hauled back to discuss it tomorrow. So what? Polharbour, don’t you think?’

  ‘The Garnish alibi, sir?’ asked Toye.

  ‘What’s really on my mind is Dettol. I even fancy I keep smelling the damn stuff: you haven’t anointed yourself with it, by any chance? Those burnt bandages stank of it. I swear the watcher in the bushes landed Streak that kick, but could it have been in self-defence? Had the dog been startled by coming on him lurking there and given him a nip? Did the bandages stem from this? If so, where did they come from? People don’t usually carry round a first-aid kit. At least, hikers sometimes do, but then respectable hikers don’t hide in bushes and kick small dogs who chance on them. Then Mrs Strode smelt Dettol in the Priory hall when she arrived on the Saturday evening, and again in the drawing-room, presumably with the door shut, so it doesn’t look as though the smell was coming down from the boys’ dormitories. Were either of the Ainsworths or Roy Garnish using it on themselves? Quite innocently and legitimately, perhaps. Or on the other hand, perhaps not.’

  Toye was silent for a few moments.

  ‘Of course, Mr Ainsworth’s alibi between 3.45 and 4.45 rests partly on his wife’s statement,’ he said thoughtfully, ‘but a check was made with the other headmaster, and the teacher he’d brought along with him, wasn’t it?’

  ‘True enough, but you never know what’ll come out when you go over the ground for yourself. And as you say, there’s the Garnish alibi, too. Anyhow, let’s go and see if we can get a few more facts to tabulate. At least we’ll feel we’re doing something.’

  Pollard enjoyed night driving on country roads: the exciting sense of being on a tiny moving island in the hidden vastness behind colour-drained two-dimensional hedgerows and trees. There were the fleeting encounters with other islands, and eternally ahead, the unwinding steel ribbon of the road. Now and again, as a reassurance, a bright fragment of the familiar world rushed upon one, and swept past to vanish into the dark once more.

  He found such journeys conducive to thought, and while the surface of his mind registered visual impressions he worried away at the problem of integrating the information collected by the enquiry up-to-date. Was it really credible that Pamela Garnish’s boyfriend had somehow got into the West Wing after murdering Roach, rifled the medicine cupboard, and in the course of giving himself first-aid had burnt soiled bandages in a biscuit tin after disposing of its contents in the dustbin?

  Fantastic, he thought impatiently, it simply isn’t on. All that monkeying about under the school windows and fiddling with bandages which could be slipped into his pocket. He abruptly rejected the whole idea, and was beginning to consider a possible case against John Ainsworth when he noticed that they had reached the outskirts of Polharbour, and the road was running along the top of a cliff.

  ‘Here, slow down a bit,’ he said to Toye. ‘Keep your eyes skinned for a bungalow called Sunset View.’

  They came on it almost at once. Toye drew up and looked round enquiringly.

  ‘The name’s going to be changed,’ Pollard told him. ‘To Crow’s Nest.’

  There was a brief silence during which he could almost hear Toye’s careful mind working through the promotions likely to follow Chief Detective-Superintendent Crowe’s retirement.

  ‘Is that so, sir?’ he said at last in a gratified tone, turning his horn rims on Pollard. ‘Very pleasant situation along here.’

  The view must be pretty good, Pollard thought, peering out of the window. The cliff fell to Polharbour Bay, above which the moon was riding in a cloudless sky. The big bright scatter of the town rose from the water’s edge, and far out at the end of the headland the beams of Pol Light swept rhythmically over the sea.

  ‘Very pleasant indeed,’ he agreed as they began to coast downhill. ‘Handy for the pub, too,’ he added, as they passed an illuminated sign announcing the Flighty Duck, an inviting local. ‘It’s nearly half-past seven. The show will just be coming on at the theatre, and the Zenith-Excelsior — God, what a name — starting to serve its high-class dinner. Not a good time for calling on either of ’em, but they’ll just have to lump it.’

  The courtesy visit to the Polharbour police station was quickly and smoothly carried through, and the first port of call was St Hector’s School.

  ‘They’ve had macaroni cheese for supper here,’ P
ollard muttered to Toye as they were escorted across the hall. ‘Not a whiff of Dettol for once, though.’

  Kenneth Musgrave, the rather donnish headmaster, and the young games master Paul Travers made no attempt to conceal the fact that they were deeply intrigued by the murder at the Priory School. Just a touch of professional malice, Pollard wondered with amusement, as he introduced the topic of the tea party after the match? But from the point of view of the enquiry the visit was completely unproductive. Both men stated categorically that no one had gone out of the room from the beginning of tea until the gathering broke up at a quarter to five. After that, the Priory people had been about the whole time until the St Hector’s coach drove off just before five. In answer to a question from Toye they were emphatic that no one had come into the room during the meal. Parrying offers of refreshment and attempts to discuss police procedure in detective fiction Pollard brought the interview to an end, and after a moment’s hesitation decided to take the Esplanade theatre next.

  On arriving they found great difficulty in parking, and finally had to produce their credentials, and enlist the help of a constable on duty. They learnt from him that it was the Polharbour Amateur Operatic Society’s Week, and that the traffic would be a proper picnic every night until it was over. Huge placards outside the theatre announced a production of The Gondoliers, and as they went into the foyer familiar strains came seeping out of the auditorium. There was a surprising amount of excited coming and going, and the manager eventually arrived looking harassed, his dress shirt slightly askew.

  ‘Ruddy shambles,’ he remarked with a comprehensive sweep of his hand. ‘You should see backstage. I suppose it’s this murder case you want. There’s the young lady who made the booking: Mrs Young. The police have been round once already. Here, Peggy, my dear, tell these gentlemen anything they want to know when you’re free. And now, if you’ll excuse me...’

  He vanished upstairs again.

  Pollard and Toye waited patiently while friends of a member of the cast booked for a large party, arguing interminably over the relative advantages of the seats available on different nights. At last they moved off, and Pollard approached the box office window. The exhausted blonde tried to summon up a welcoming smile.

  ‘We’re not the Press, Mrs Young, and we haven’t come to book seats,’ he told her, producing his official card.

  ‘Coo!’ she exclaimed, staring at it. ‘My hubby won’t be half wild when he hears I’ve been talking to a real live Scotland Yard Chief Inspector! He’s a terrific crime fan. You’re on that school murder, I suppose?’

  ‘As we’ve been asked to take over the Affacombe case,’ Pollard explained, ‘we like to check up on statements already made as a matter of routine. I’m sorry to bother you at a busy time, but perhaps you’d just run over the booking of the seats for last Saturday’s matinee by Mr and Mrs Garnish. This is Sergeant Toye, who’s working with me.’

  ‘Pleased to meet you, I’m sure,’ replied Mrs Young. ‘Well, it’s just as I told the local chap when he came along. It was Mr Garnish rang us, about ten past one. I’d just come on duty. He asked what we’d got for the afternoon, and I offered him a couple of stalls in the third row. A bit far forward, of course, but it was a popular show, and there wasn’t much left. He said he supposed it’d have to do, and to hang on to the tickets and they’d pick ’em up after lunch. That’s all.’

  ‘Who actually picked them up?’

  ‘She did. Gave the name, and said her husband was parking the car. Paid, and that was that. They’d run it pretty close, and she began to get properly steamed up when he didn’t come, and didn’t come. He had a job finding a space, most likely: we could do with a car park twice the size. In the end I saw her go out on to the steps, and then they both came hurrying in, and I could hear her going for him, and him giving back as good as he got. Then someone wanted an advance booking, and I never gave them another thought until it all came out in the papers, and said the school belonged to a Mr Garnish, and I wondered if it was them, y’know.’

  Pollard produced the photograph which he had borrowed from John Ainsworth.

  ‘That’s her!’ Mrs Young exclaimed excitedly, jabbing with her finger before he could frame a question. ‘Not what you’d call an oil painting, is she? Still, she’s married into the money all right: it’s written all over her. And that looks like him all right, but I didn’t see him so close, of course. Janice is the one you really want. She’s the usherette who showed them to their seats and served their tea in one of the intervals. If I pop in and get her now you’ll just have time before the end of the act.’

  A few moments later the obliging Mrs Young reappeared with a harassed dark woman. She was wearing the usherettes’ uniform supplied by the management: a claret-coloured frock with a huge sash, and a headdress with a species of antennae, which in her case seemed to be quivering with agitation.

  ‘I won’t keep you more than a minute,’ Pollard assured her. ‘Do you remember showing a lady and gentleman to seats in the third row of the stalls just before the curtain went up at last Saturday’s matinee?’

  ‘I’ve told the police I did once already. They’re on to the last bit of the act now, and I’ve got to collect my ice-creams.’

  ‘There’ll be at least one encore, if I know anything about amateur theatricals. Please look carefully at this photograph, and tell me if you recognize either the lady or the gentleman.’

  ‘That’s him, and that’s her.’ Janice identified both Garnishes without hesitation.

  ‘You must have a very good memory for faces,’ Pollard remarked. ‘Surely they were behind you when you were leading them down the gangway to their seats?’

  ‘Course they were. But they ordered tea for the second interval, and when the trays passes along you got to look sharp to see the right folk gets ’em. And you takes ’em up again when they’ve done and has to see the money’s right, all before the house lights goes off.’

  She gave an anguished exclamation as a roar of applause broke out in the auditorium, and Pollard let her go after ascertaining that she had taken the order for tea during the first interval.

  Toye remarked that the forecourt of the Zenith-Excelsior looked like one of the classier bits of the Motor Show. They parked between a gleaming Rolls and a Bentley with a Birmingham registration number, and went up a broad flight of shallow steps to an outsize revolving door. As it decanted them into the reception area the hall porter came forward. Something in his bearing contrived to suggest that they must be under a misapprehension as to the type of clientele catered for by the hotel.

  ‘Can I help you, gentlemen?’ he enquired, his tone implying that such a contingency was unlikely to arise.

  ‘I don’t think so, thank you,’ Pollard replied, making for the desk, his feet sinking into the lush carpet at every step. Toye followed in his wake, while the porter, taken aback and suddenly unsure of his ground, hovered in the rear.

  An elegant young woman engaged in examining her scarlet nails looked up, her expression poised between a welcoming smile and frigid hauteur.

  ‘Good evening,’ Pollard said. ‘I am Chief Detective-Inspector Pollard of New Scotland Yard, and want to see the manager, please.’

  ‘Excuse me one moment,’ she said, looking startled, and vanished through a door behind her in search of reinforcements. Pollard leant an elbow on the desk and contemplated his surroundings. He wondered how it was possible to spend money so lavishly and yet achieve so uninspired a result. Even the massed embankments of chrysanthemums were somehow flat and uninteresting. Through a wide archway he could see a lounge with groups of comfortable chairs round low tables. A waiter carrying a tray of assorted drinks crossed the opening and passed out of sight. The smell of expensive tobacco floated out to him, and blended agreeably with the sharp tang of the chrysanthemums. In the far distance he could hear strains of light music.

  ‘Chief Inspector Pollard?’

  He turned at the deep harsh voice, and saw that the recep
tionist had fetched a smart ugly woman with blue hair and an unattractively underhung jaw. A fairly big gun, he decided.

  ‘Good evening,’ he replied. ‘As I expect you were told, I have come to see the manager.’

  ‘The manager is engaged,’ she told him brusquely. ‘He is most unlikely to be free this evening.’

  ‘I have enquiries to make here in connection with the Affacombe case,’ he replied, ‘and naturally don’t wish to embark on questioning his staff without informing him. Would you kindly ask him either to spare me a few minutes or to authorize a deputy to do so? In the meantime my colleague and I can wait in the lounge.’

  He indicated the archway, and watched her blench.

  ‘Surely it would be more convenient if you had a private room,’ she said quickly. ‘Please come this way.’

  They followed her by a devious route to a bleak little room which Pollard rightly guessed to be a waiting-room for prospective domestic staff.

  ‘Give me the Flighty Duck,’ commented Toye as they accommodated themselves on a couple of hard upright chairs.

  ‘Honours easy so far,’ said Pollard. ‘Now they’ll keep us hanging around to show what an important place it is.’

  After an interval of ten minutes a sleek young man arrived, and announced himself as the deputy assistant manager. The manager regretted that it was quite impossible for him to see Inspector Pollard. He wished to point out that the police had already made enquiries in the hotel, and could only hope that Inspector Pollard would employ the utmost discretion.

  ‘Who do you want to see?’ The young man suddenly became human, having said his piece, and looked at them with undisguised interest.

  ‘The receptionist who saw the arrival of Mr and Mrs Garnish of Affacombe Priory about one o’clock on Saturday, and had some conversation with them, and anyone who served them drinks and was concerned with their lunch. As Scotland Yard has taken over the case, previous statements are being checked as a routine measure,’ Pollard patiently explained once again.