‘The one that’s grown the ‘tache? Hey! He’s real scrumptious. Drag him back with you, Phil.’ It was a flash of sheer bravado. Her eyes shone. She tossed her head, swinging her hair back, glanced at the mirror in the wardrobe door. Stupid creature! Or perhaps not. It depended on how susceptible he was.
To tell the truth, I was glad to get out of that room. Bella could pack so small a space with the crowding aura of her personality. She was a vital and vibrant creature, setting the air tingling with her unique electricity. I had to get out into the open air, to breathe it in and shake her weight from me. I wasn’t sure how she’d managed to fool me, but she had. I felt it. Call it an instinct. Somewhere along the line she had deliberately misled me.
The fine rain had now ceased, the drops being sufficiently separated to allow me a fair range of visibility. The mist had lifted and withdrawn. Nevertheless, the journey was not simple, as I’d previously had Bella to guide me, and it was now difficult to recall which twists and turns we’d taken. My impression was that we’d headed in the direction of the factory chimney, and certainly we had left behind the main bulk of the town. She had spoken of a row of cottages that should have been there. Of trees. Yes, we’d driven along a dark and obscure road beneath an arch of overhanging trees. I thought I had it right, and pressed on.
And there was the stretch of naked foundations where a row of cottages might have been. I could see no reason for their removal, but perhaps a more modern development of houses was due. The road swung round a bend, and plunged towards the outbuildings and yard of a farmhouse. I couldn’t recall it. There were no dogs, no farm animals, empty and desolate barns, and no curtains at the windows of the farmhouse itself. Although the farm still stood, its very emptiness emphasized the deserted impression of this portion of the landscape. It was October. The wheat, or whatever, would be safely gathered in, though the fields gave no indication of stubble. And there… there ahead, but forking away to the left, was what must have been my tunnel of trees.
I drove into it. Now it was really gloomy, the fallen leaves mushy beneath the tyres, the nearly naked branches tangling above. Then at the top of a rise, as the trees fell back, there was further evidence of recent occupation. Gardens. What had been gardens, anyway, but now with no delineation between what had been lawn and what flower beds. Houses had lived along here, sprinkled in the countryside like cast seed, but now sagging and lost, some half destroyed already, the others shells, almost flinching from the distant sound of the tractor diggers, though this was no more than a distant mutter now. Subdued.
None of this had I noticed on the drive back to the Crown. I’d simply driven in the general direction, my attention more on Bella, whimpering and gasping in the other seat. Now I was more alert, eyes everywhere, absorbing impressions. The two houses had been isolated. Desirable residences in their own grounds. That’s how they would have been described. And there they were, on a rise of ground to the left. What was left. I’d parked inside the entrance of the drive that previous time. This visit, I parked out on the road. Lane? Was that a fairer description? It was narrow, its surface entirely covered in a mushy sludge. A pity I didn’t have my wellies, but I’d been unable to imagine in what circumstances I’d need them on the QE2. In my low-heeled walking shoes, I picked my way up to the house, past police vans and cars, past a wagon with an open back, past the remains of Bella’s previous home. Ivy House, I saw on a plaque, twisted against the porch entrance. And eventually I faced the neighbouring house, now barely recognizable as such. This was where the skull had been unearthed.
Then it all became clear to me. There was no mistaking that swathe of battered and naked earth that swept towards me from around the factory, away out there, a two hundred yards width of rutted and pounded mud before me, the detritus piled, almost with contempt, on each side. They were putting in a motorway, or a spur. The houses had stood in the way. A push and a shove and a snarl of engines, and they’d be gone, a few tossed bricks in the heaped piles of ruination.
Yet a single skull, so small in that extensive construction, had brought it all to a halt. Any clearing activity was way over the other side of that sweeping sprawl of flattened ground, seeming paltry, the tractors now like beetles, crawling slowly over a dung heap.
He was there, Detective Inspector Connaught, in a short waterproof coat and a tweed hat on the back of his head, feet apart, hands clasped behind him and flaring the skirt of the coat. Beyond and below him his men were working, about twenty of them, up to the tops of their wellies in mud, fumbling and slipping, using spades and sieves. On the only stretch of flat and as yet untrammelled ground, there was spread a brown tarpaulin. On it they were placing bones, as they were recovered. A sergeant (I guessed his rank, he being almost completely enveloped in a police-issue waterproof cape) held a clipboard. He was recording each discovery as they washed it clean with a hosepipe and numbered it with an indelible pencil. Care — oh, such tender care! They were reassembling Rowland Fields.
Connaught turned as I took my place beside him. He nodded, but said nothing. His eyes lingered for a moment on my face.
‘The weather’s not ideal,’ I commented.
He shrugged. ‘You take what you get. Where is she?’
‘Back at the hotel. She’s not going anywhere, you know.’
‘Yes. I know that.’
‘She’s recovering.’
‘I’m sure she is.’ He swayed, his coat swinging. ‘And you?’
‘And me — what?’ I glanced sideways. His eyes seemed to be mocking me. ‘Oh, I see. No, I wasn’t too upset. If that’s what you meant.’
‘It wouldn’t be so personal?’
‘Of course not.’ Yet it hadn’t been a casual enquiry.
One of the searchers raised his head. ‘That’s three of these, sarge.’
‘So what? Mark it, Tyler, mark it, and get on with the job.’
‘Three legs, sarge?’
‘What d’you know about it?’ the sergeant demanded. ‘You’re always falling over yours.’
It would be necessary to treat the operation with impersonal levity, I supposed.
‘I’ll have to see her,’ said Connaught thoughtfully.
‘She seemed to want to see you,’ I told him, not exactly truthfully.
‘Really? In the mood for confession, is she?’
I shook my head, and grinned at his expression. ‘Something more personal, I gathered.’
It worked. He betrayed himself. A hand appeared from the folds of his coat, a finger swept over his moustache. Another egotist! Their meeting would be packed with interest; I hoped I could be there. His eyes were bright, one eyebrow lifted. I had the impression he’d dismissed me from conscious thought. But no. Breathing out heavily and producing a cloud of steam, he went on: ‘You came over together on the QE2?’
‘I wouldn’t put it quite like that. We were on it. We met there. I found her interesting.’
‘Of course,’ he commented, assuming I would. ‘Very interest-ing, it seems.’
‘Meaning what?’
He turned to face me, smiling his damp smile, switching on all his practised charm. ‘Three or four days of acquaintanceship, and you chased her all the way from Southampton to here. You booked a double room at the Crown, you took her along there, and you were at her side when the skull turned up. Now ... that I consider to be something rather special in the way of interest.’
I didn’t like his eyes. Too close together, I suppose, beneath eyebrows too bushy. I shrugged. ‘We’d become kind of friends. I’d got the idea she was heading into trouble.’
‘The idea? From what?’
‘Impressions.’
‘How easy you make it all sound. I wish I could go on impressions. They can trip you up, Miss Lowe. It is Miss, I suppose?’
‘Miss will do. And it seems my impressions were correct. You’ll hear, when you speak to her. It took a fair bit of extracting, but I think she’ll admit it now. She was tipped off that this demolition was under
way. So she was concerned.’
I wasn’t giving away anything critical. She would tell him, and she could explain her feelings better than I could.
‘Yet all the same, at that time you had no more than an impression. And on that you’ve involved yourself...’
‘I suppose I’m just plain nosy.’
Then he unveiled the full perfection of his smile. It was a singularly unpleasant experience; a touch more and it would have been terrifying.
‘I don’t believe you, Miss Lowe,’ he said softly, and the light died from his eyes.
I tried to shrug, tried to find the correct voice with which to tell him I didn’t care one little jot what he believed, but suddenly I knew I did care. I’d involved myself, so I’d been able to decide when to walk away from it. Now he’d involved me, and I wasn’t going to escape anywhere.
The same constable rescued me, raising his voice. ‘And another of these, sarge!’ he shouted, just a little personal triumph in it.
I turned. There’d been urgency too in his voice.
He was holding aloft a second skull.
Chapter 4
I drove Inspector Connaught back into town in the Rover. He sat moodily beside me, plucking at his moustache, but when he was satisfied I knew the way he suddenly broke the silence.
‘Not one word about this second skull, d’you hear! Not a gesture, not a sign to her.’
‘Of course not.’ I glanced at him. His eyebrows were lowered. ‘You’ll allow me to be there, then?’
I got a sharp glance. ‘Daren’t let you out of my sight.’
‘Should I be flattered?’ No reaction, so I went on, ‘Of course, we’ll discuss it together after you’ve left.’
‘That might not be possible,’ he said placidly.
‘Why not?’
‘Separate cells.’ He was morose, his thoughts assembling themselves elsewhere. I was unable to tell whether he was serious.
We were leaving the factory behind on our left, the view of it gradually decreasing to no more than the top of the chimney. He suddenly said, ‘Turn right here. We’ll come into town from the other direction.’
I obeyed, though not seeing his point. The road began to climb as we rose out of the valley. Along here were neat rows of newer houses, mostly detached, tidy and evenly spaced. Further up, the houses became larger, more carefully and expensively laid out, use having been made of the great old oaks and beeches for landscaping purposes. There were a large number of For Sale signs.
‘Anticipating the motorway spur,’ he said suddenly, reading my mind. ‘This development’s been completed two or three years. The motorway plans got bogged down. When it’s completed, these properties will become choice, and therefore very expensive. Very.’
We rose above them, leaving the last behind as the road swept round to the left. It was open countryside here. I’d probably driven into the town this way, though unable to recall it. He said, ‘Pull in here.’
It was a lay-by. An old farm gate still stood to one side, strong enough for us to lean on. Companionably. I couldn’t understand his purpose, and simply waited for him to say something. The town now lay below us, and there was a clear view of half a mile of the curving swathe of motorway footings as it swung round behind the factory, now fully visible again.
‘They make plastic mouldings,’ he said eventually, apparently guessing my thoughts. ‘The slip road will give the factory a good feed-in for its wagons. Tudor Kemp owns that. And owns a fair number of those houses you saw for sale, and the land the motorway’s gobbling up. Rowland Fields owned both of those houses — he of the first skull, we’ll assume for now. You can see what trouble Rowley could cause by opposing the land purchase. Two houses, rotten old things, and he was putting every possible objection to the motorway coming through there. You understand what I’m getting at? He wouldn’t be able to hold out for ever, but he could cause a deal of delay.’
He was silent. The breeze ruffled his hair. He was waiting for me to say something, but I was busy wondering why he was telling me this. Making an effort, I murmured, ‘They could declare him legally dead after he’d been missing seven years.’
He cast me a sharp glance, something of approval in it, as though I might be his favourite confidante. ‘Which is what happened. By that time, of course, the Fields’s own house had been plundered. So all was ready for the motorway to go through. And… think about it… a man had disappeared, and there’d have been seven years of uncertainty for all except the one person who knew Rowley Fields was dead, and wouldn’t be coming back. Seven years in which one man could quietly buy up land and property, knowing Rowley Fields wasn’t coming back. You see my point?’
What I discerned was the fact that he had a personal dislike for this man, Tudor Kemp. But I spoke brightly. ‘With piercing clarity. But there wasn’t just your friend, Tudor Kemp. Lots of other people wished Rowley Fields dead.’
‘Oh yes,’ he agreed, smiling at me in approval. ‘The football pool winners, or rather non-winners — yes. Half a dozen husbands and boy-friends whose women Rowley had charmed, though I don’t think he ever went further than that. Charmed. A lovely delicate word, that is, but he was a charmer. Some men have got it,’ he said, a hint of complacency in his voice.
‘I never seem to meet them,’ I admitted.
‘The point I wished to make, is that there are forty or more possible suspects for the killing of Rowley Fields. I know them all. I was a sergeant at the time he disappeared. It’s a large and complex investigation now, Philipa Lowe. Not for one individual, but for a large team.’
‘You want to get rid of me,’ I decided.
‘How did you guess! Shall we say for my own peace of mind.’ ‘Very considerate of you. Is that why you’ve been telling me all this background stuff?’
He didn’t answer that, but turned from his contemplation of the horizon. His hand rested on my arm. Sincerity was heading my way. ‘I don’t know you, Philipa Lowe. You could be a news person, out for a scoop. Or involved in some other way. For all I know.’
‘I can prove… my passport...’
‘Never mind your damned passport. Philipa Lowe! There’s a false name if I ever heard one.’
‘It’s real.’
‘It smacks of Raymond Chandler.’
‘My father was a Chandler fan. He wrote a book about him. Chief Superintendent Lowe. Look him up, Inspector. He told me he was glad I was a girl, so that he would name me Philipa. It’s Philip Marlowe, but without the M and the R.’
‘Without the mister.’ He gave me a twisted grin, not certain I wasn’t kidding him. ‘Clever.’ He shrugged then, accepting it, sighed. ‘Then you’ll be in a position, my dear Miss Lowe, to understand what you’ve involved yourself in. A big and time-wasting investigation.’
‘You’d advise me to pack and depart?’
‘Exactly.’
‘But, my dear Inspector, what you’ve been saying related to only one death — Rowland Fields. Now you’ve got two skulls. It’s an entirely different ball game.’
The smile expanded on his face slowly, as though it took a vast effort. He’d urged me round to his real point. ‘Which . . He touched my arm again, ‘… is going to make things very unpleasant. Narrows it down from forty-odd possibles to one specific person, who’s been lying her head off like the excellent actress she is. But I intend to get to the bottom of it. Do you believe in intuitions, Miss Lowe?’
‘When they’ve got some backing, yes.’
‘Then my feeling is that this business is going to cease to be unpleasant and become rapidly very nasty indeed.’
‘You’re not scaring me.’
‘No? Then consider again this relationship you’ve developed. Consider it beside the fact...’
He stopped, as though realizing he’d gone too far. He took a breath. It was almost a sigh. Then he decided to carry it on.
‘You saw the sergeant, recording exactly where each bone was recovered. Yes. It’s routine. Forensic will have
to do a lot of reassembling. They’ll be able to tell us heights, sexes, possibly even ages. But there’s one thing you must bear in mind. We’d already noted that those two bodies were buried side by side. Lying together. Think about that.’
He didn’t mean at that moment, he meant over a protracted period of contemplation. It took me five seconds. ‘You mean, at the same —’
‘Yes. Now let’s get on. We’re wasting time,’ he said severely, as though I’d been the one doing it.
We got back into the car and I drove on, not needing much in the way of directions now. He left me to it, brooding darkly. I had time to think. Side by side. That had to mean they’d been buried together, at the same time. Surely? Probably. I couldn’t think of any other explanation. Two people buried by one person. Oh God! And I’d felt it — felt that Bella had been lying to me in some respect.
I missed a turning. He muttered, ‘First right, and right again.’
This I did, and there was the Crown. I drove round into their tight and cobbled car park, so that we entered the lobby by the back door. No one was around. We climbed the stairs silently and I used my key in the door. Put my head in.
‘You decent?’
Decent! She’d had time to give herself the grand treatment, wearing casual slacks and a short jacket over an embroidered white silk blouse. Nothing showy, but by heaven they all fused together into a single impression of majestic confidence, with no hint that she’d anticipated this encounter and was anything but completely relaxed, even appearing surprised to see us, but pleased.
‘Philipa! You’ve been ages. And the inspector! How pleasant to meet you again, Mr Connaught.’
‘It’s Arnold,’ he said, smiling, disarmed by her magnificence.
‘I know.’ She smiled at me.
I would have expected him to have arranged for a woman officer to be waiting downstairs, but there hadn’t been one. Now I knew why he needed me. It was all to be informal, no notes taken, no warning given. I was there merely to testify, if necessary, that there’d been no pressure, no coercion.
Bella tossed me one quick glance, then her attention was fully on Connaught. She was pleased to see him — as a man. She chose not to be aware of the police inspector behind his bland and switched-on charm.
Bury Him Darkly Page 5
