Beginner's Luck

by Paul Somers

  Fifteen minutes later two police cars drew up at the kissing-gate and four plain-clothes men came up the path and joined us. The chief inspector introduced himself. His name was Cobley. He was a big, grim-looking man with a thin, tight mouth, but his manner to us was friendly enough.

  I told him how we’d come to be there, and how I’d been poking about for the stone shot when the body had appeared. He knew about the shot, because he’d read Mollie’s story in the Courier that morning. I told him I’d pulled the body out, and he looked a bit disapproving, but he didn’t say anything. He took his sergeant down to the well, and we stood on the steps while they examined the body. After a moment Cobley felt in the inside breast pocket of the dead man’s jacket and produced a wallet, which he brought out into the brighter light of the courtyard.

  “Bashed on the head!” he remarked laconically to a third man. The two who had not yet seen the body went down to look. Cobley put the wallet on a bit of broken wall and opened it carefully and began to go through the sodden contents. About the first thing he pulled out was a driving licence.

  “May we know who he is, inspector?” Mollie asked, in her most cajoling tone.

  “I don’t see why not,” Cobley said. “You’ll have to give us time to break the news to the relatives before you start any inquiries, that’s all … John Hoad, Down View, Clifton Road, Brighton.”

  I memorised the name and address.

  “I’ll want a statement from you two,” he said. “Just hold on a minute …”

  He turned to the other men and gave them some instructions. One of them went back to the gate. Another prepared to take photographs of the body and its surroundings. The third went off for a preliminary look round the castle.

  “Now then,” said Cobley, “if you’d just let me have the main details again. Exactly what time was it when you found the body …?”

  I gave him the details. Mollie confirmed them. It occurred to me that he’d probably want to see Figgis some time, so I told him where the caretaker could be found in London. He made a note and thanked me for the information. Then he checked our shoes against the footprints round the well. He didn’t seem very hopeful about the prints. “Looks like a herd of buffaloes has been around here,” he grumbled. He had a look at the grass near the bombard, and then set off on a tour of the castle. We went with him, in case he discovered anything we’d overlooked, but he didn’t appear to. That seemed to exhaust the immediate possibilities. Presently two men came up the field path with a stretcher, and the body was taken away under a rug. The photographer had all the pictures he needed, and was packing up his camera.

  Cobley said, “By the way, Miss Bourne, what were those noises in the night that you mentioned in your story? Anything specific?”

  Mollie avoided my eye. “Not really, Inspector. Just—well, sound effects.”

  “Atmosphere, eh?”

  “That’s all.”

  He nodded tolerantly. Just then, two more men came up the hill, drawing a wheeled pump behind them. They took it to the well tower and started the engine and we watched while they pumped the well dry. Afterwards one of them went down by ladder. There was nothing at the bottom but a thin layer of mud, and the stone shot.

  Another man came up to Cobley and said something that I didn’t catch. He turned to us. “All right,” he said, “I don’t think I need detain you two any longer. Thank you for your help.”

  Mollie smiled and said, “Thank you, Inspector,” and we departed together. As we reached her car she said, “Well, this is where we split up.”

  “War to the knife again?”

  “Naturally. It begins to look like quite a story.”

  “Why don’t you get a job on the Record?” I said. “Then we could work together all the time.”

  “What do you think I am,” she said, “a plumber’s mate? Well—good luck!” She got into her car, and drove off as though she were leaving the pits on a race track.

  She hadn’t said where she was going, but I assumed it was Brighton. I wondered if I ought to ring the office and tell them what had happened, but decided that I’d better go to Brighton, too, and ring them later. The Riley was at the pub, and I hurried down and collected it.

  It wasn’t until I was well on my way that I began to think of the distasteful interview ahead. Even though Cobley’s men had presumably taken care of the news-breaking, the widow—assuming there was one—would hardly be in much of a state to talk to reporters. In any case, Mollie would be there before me, getting all there was to get and probably queering the pitch for me. It was annoying that she’d managed to get ahead once more. I stepped hard on the accelerator. I didn’t expect to catch her, but at least I wouldn’t be far behind. Then, as I slowed through Worthing High Street, I suddenly saw the Sunbeam Talbot. It was drawn up beside the kerb behind a police car, and a flat-capped policeman, evidently impervious to charm, was making notes in a book. Homer, it seemed, had nodded.

  I reached Brighton just after one o’clock. Clifton Road turned out to be a new one, cut out of the Downs at the edge of the town. The houses were small, detached villas, with small, trim gardens. Down View was the last house but one. I parked outside and walked up a concrete path between beds of tulips and rang the bell in some trepidation. Meeting the bereaved was going to be a good deal worse than finding a body. Expressions of sympathy, apologies for the intrusion, were already on my lips. But no one came. I rang the bell again, but now I scarcely expected anyone to come. Probably the widow had gone off with the police—they’d obviously want to question her. Or perhaps she’d gone to see the remains, poor soul!

  I was just turning away, half-relieved and half-disappointed, when I heard a step on the path next door and a woman emerged from the back garden. She was elderly, with a bird’s nest of grey hair and bright blue eyes. She wore a coloured smock, and she had a builder’s trowel in one hand and half a brick in the other. She looked at me across the fence and said, “Are you the police again?”

  I told her I was a reporter from the Record.

  “Oh, yes. It’s about poor Mr. Hoad, I suppose?”

  I nodded.

  “I’m afraid you won’t find anyone to talk to, except me.” She gave the half-brick a light tap. “I’m just building a wall.… Mrs. Hoad’s up in Scotland, visiting her mother. Dear, oh dear, what a shocking business. I could scarcely believe it when they told me.”

  She looked moderately upset, but at least a neighbour’s distress was manageable. And she was obviously quite prepared to talk. I said, “Do you happen to know Mrs. Hoad’s address in Scotland?”

  “It’s a place called Inveraray, that’s all I know. I told the police and they said they’d be able to find her. I can hardly bear to think about it—it’s going to be such a dreadful shock for her.”

  “It’s bound to be,” I said sympathetically, and moved closer to the fence. “A ghastly thing to have happened! It was I who found Mr. Hoad’s body, you know. I’ve just come from the place.”

  “Have you really? They say someone hit him on the head—was that what happened?”

  “Apparently.” She seemed avid for detail, so I gave her some. She lapped it up.

  “Well, I just can’t imagine how anyone could have done such a thing to him,” she said at last. “He was such a nice, quiet man—he wouldn’t have hurt a fly himself. I’m sure he never did anyone any harm. There really are some very wicked people in the world.”

  I agreed. “How old would you say he was?” I asked. “Sixty?”

  “Oh, not as much as that—more like fifty. His wife is much younger—Norah, her name is. She’s only about thirty—she’s very pretty.”

  “Have they any family?”

  “A little boy of four. He’s up with his mother in Scotland. Poor little chap …”

  “Have you any idea what Mr. Hoad could have been doing at Lodden?” I asked.

  “Why, yes, he was on his boat,” she said, as though she thought I knew. “It was one of his favourite spots, th
e river there. He was having a week’s holiday, you see, while his wife was away.”

  “What sort of boat is it?”

  “Well, I don’t know exactly, I’ve never seen it—I think it’s just an ordinary boat, with an engine. It was his hobby, he was absolutely mad about it. Mrs. Hoad didn’t like going on the sea because it always made her ill, but she often joined him for a week-end on the river when the weather was nice—and the little boy too, of course. They were all absolutely devoted to each other. Such a tragedy!”

  “Terrible!” I said. “Do you happen to know the name of the boat?”

  “Now let me think—it was some bird. Snipe, that’s it.”

  I nodded. “What did Mr. Hoad do for a living?”

  “He was a chartered accountant.”

  “Did he go up to town every day?”

  “No, he worked here in Brighton.”

  “Had he many friends?”

  “Oh, yes, a great many. Everybody liked him.”

  “Well, there must have been one person who didn’t,” I said. I thanked her for the information she’d given me, and asked her for her own name, which was Prew. Miss Prew, I gathered. Then I left. As I turned into the main road, Mollie turned out of it. She made a face at me as she passed.

  I popped into a pub and had a beer and a sandwich, and then I rang the office. Lawson was on the Desk.

  I said, “This is Curtis. I thought I’d better let you know that I’ve found a body in a well.”

  There was a moment’s silence. Then Lawson said, anxiously, “Are you drunk, old boy?”

  “Sober as a judge,” I assured him. “Remember that stone shot I was looking for?—it was tied to the body. The police have just taken the chap away.”

  “Christ!” he said. “Look, hold on—I’d better tell Blair. He’s up in the canteen.”

  I held on. In a moment or two, Blair came on the phone, a bit breathless. “Hallo, Curtis,” he said. “What’s all this about a body?”

  I told him. He kept grunting encouragingly—he had a most eager grunt when he was hearing news of a story. He seemed very pleased.

  “Well, it sounds like a first-class story,” he said. “Is anyone else on to it yet?”

  “Mollie Bourne,” I said.

  “Oh!” A little of the excitement went out of his voice; a hint of anxiety came into it. “Have you put your story over yet?”

  “No, but I can in a few minutes.”

  “I think you’d better, Curtis—I’d like to know the strength of it. Let’s have it quickly—everything you’ve got. After that you’d better get back to the castle—but keep in touch.” He was as nervous and fussy as an old aunt. I said I would, and he rang off.

  I wrote out the story—I still didn’t trust myself to dictate a piece straight over the phone from notes. I wrote it straight, in the first person, just as it had happened, with all the facts I knew and the interview with Miss Prew at the end. It sounded pretty good to me as I phoned it. I had another word with Lawson and then drove back to London.

  Things had changed a lot at the castle by the time I got there. A dozen cars were parked beside the kissing-gate and the place was swarming with reporters. Most of them, I was glad to find, had only just arrived. P.C. Mathers was on guard at the gate, moving on local sightseers with a mixture of embarrassment and self-importance. Inside the castle a couple of plain-clothes men were at work again, carefully hoisting the stone shot out of the well. Apparently there was some hope of fingerprints, even though it had been under water. A man was watching them whom I hadn’t seen before, and he turned out to be Tom Figgis. The police had got in touch with him in London and he’d come straight down. He was a strongly-built, dark-haired man of thirty or so, with cold blue eyes and more assurance than I’d have expected in a countryman. His voice was clear and emphatic, with almost nothing of the local burr about it, and I could imagine him as an excellent guide. He wasn’t very forthcoming when I tackled him, perhaps because he’d already been interviewed by the police and all the other reporters, but he opened out a bit when I told him it was I who’d found the body. The only trouble was, he didn’t know anything, except what had already come out.

  I hung about for a while, but nothing fresh emerged and I didn’t think anything was likely to. About four I went back to the Castle Arms, and there was a message for me to ring the office. This time I got straight through to Blair.

  “Oh, hallo, Curtis,” he said, in a voice that was almost genial. “That’s a very good piece you sent, very good indeed. We’ll certainly be using some of it. The Editor’s very pleased with it.”

  “I’m glad about that,” I murmured.

  “Now look, Curtis, we’re sending Lawson down to take over. I don’t want you to think it’s any reflection on you, you’ve done very well, but it’s an important story and it needs a man of experience. So Lawson will be down early this evening, and I’d like you to work under his direction.”

  “Very well,” I said.

  “In the meantime, will you try to get a line on that boat of Hoad’s—it must be somewhere around. You might find some clue, there—and anyway, we’d like a description of it. We’ve got a good start on this, and we’ve got to keep ahead.”

  “I’ll do my best,” I said.

  “Good! That’s all, then.” Blair gave a little chuckle into the phone. “We’ll make a reporter of you yet, Curtis!”

  Chapter Six

  I put the receiver down with mixed feelings. Blair’s praise had fallen on my ears like music, and the fact that I’d done reasonably well so far made it all the harder to accept gracefully the fact that I was to be superseded. All the same, I realised that Blair was probably right. I’d had a lot of luck up till now, but at any moment I might find myself out of my depth. From the Record’s point of view, Lawson was a much safer proposition.

  Meanwhile, I still had an hour or two on my own before he arrived, and I resolved to make the most of it. First I went back to the castle to see if I could pick up any news of the boat there, but the detectives had gone and Figgis, as usual, knew nothing. Mathers, still on duty at the gate, told me Inspector Cobley was setting up his temporary headquarters at the police station in Worley, a small market town about five miles from Lodden, so I drove straight over. But the plain-clothes men were all out on the job, and the station sergeant hadn’t heard about any boat. It looked as though I should have to conduct my own search. I bought an inch-to-the-mile map of the district and studied the course of the River Lod. There were only about seven miles of it between the sea and the castle, and I knew Hoad couldn’t have cruised above the castle because the road bridge at Lodden was too low to get under. Seven miles didn’t seem too formidable a proposition. I debated whether it would be quicker to make hit-or-miss inquiries at various points along the route, or to cover the whole distance myself on foot. In the end, I decided to walk it.

  I drove back to Lodden, parked the car, and set off southwards along the river bank. There was no proper path, but the river ran mainly through quiet pastures and I didn’t think anyone would object to my doing a bit of trespassing. During the next half hour I waded through several patches of mud, climbed a lot of fences, and scrambled through some very prickly hedges. It was warm work, for the sky was cloudless and the sun still beat down fiercely. Once I heard the sound of a tractor in the distance, and I saw plenty of sheep and cows, but no people. I passed two pleasure boats, moored to the bank beside farm tracks, but this was a week-day and they were both unoccupied. There was no sign at all of Snipe.

  I’d walked about three miles when, from somewhere not far ahead, I caught the unmistakable sound of a two-stroke engine, and a moment later a small boat appeared round a bend in the river, travelling fast. It was a light dinghy, driven by an outboard motor. There were two men in it. By the time I’d identified one of them as Inspector Cobley it had swept past me and disappeared round another bend.

  I felt pretty sure they were looking for Snipe. If they’d stopped I could have sav
ed them a journey. As it was, they’d saved me one. There was obviously no point now in going on, so I sat down on the bank to rest and wait for the dinghy’s return. It looked, after all, as though I shouldn’t be able to add much to my story. I wondered what Mollie was doing, and how she’d got on with the slightly eccentric Miss Prew. Maybe, I thought, she wasn’t so good with elderly spinsters as she was with susceptible men.

  Twenty minutes passed, and then I heard the outboard again. As the dinghy approached within hailing distance I cupped my hands and called out, “No sign of Snipe?” This time Cobley recognised me. He slowed for a moment and shook his head. “Not on this river!” he shouted. Then he opened up again, and they were gone.

  I sat on for a while, pondering. If Hoad hadn’t been killed near the castle, how had the murderer got his body to the well? If he had been killed near the castle, I’d have expected his boat to be somewhere around. The mystery seemed to be deepening. But without any information to go on it was idle to speculate, and presently I got up and began to retrace my steps back towards Lodden.

  There was a strong smell of petrol in the air, and I noticed that the outboard had left a slick of oil on the water. It drifted slowly downstream, a patch of irridescent purple and green. A couple of hundred yards ahead there was another patch. For the next half mile there were patches at regular intervals. Cobley’s engine evidently needed attention. Then, right before my eyes, a stretch of water that had been clear suddenly became covered with the same oily colours. The oil wasn’t from the outboard! It was coming up from the river bed. It must have been coming up when I’d passed by before, only I’d been too busy thinking about Snipe then to notice.

  I watched the spot, fascinated. The patch of oil drifted away on the lazy current. The water cleared. Several minutes went by. Then a bubble rose to the surface and broke and the water was oily again.